Lance Strate and Adeena Karasick. the Medium Is the Muse: Channeling Marshall McLuhan

Article excerpt

Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian philosopher of communication theory whose work is viewed as one of the cornerstones of the study of media theory, was also a literary scholar who believed artists could offer new perspectives into the world. Some of those perspectives are found in this new collection of twenty-nine poets, writers, and artists who channel McLuhan as both medium and muse. To wit, Adeena Karasick begins her poem "Your Leaky Day," with a McLuhan aphorism, "the future leaks out"; Lance Strate's poem "The Medium Is ..." includes the lines "the medium is the message" and "the medium is the massage"; Alexandra Oliver's work quotes the McLuhan adage "I may be wrong, but I'm never in doubt."

Tom Wolfe, an author and journalist best known for his association with the New Journalism (and a friend and early proponent of McLuhan), has two poems in the book--"Ping Pong" and "Man Made Whole Again. …